Policy and guidance
Martha Blom-Cooper and Robin Lipscombe were welcomed to their first meeting.
The Chairman said that there was unanimity amongst Ministers and the Senior Judiciary for the Parole Board to be fully integrated into the Court Service. He hoped that early progress would be made in taking this forward.
It was noted that the new Act received Royal Assent on 8.5.08. The MoJ had originally advised the Board that the provisions relating to the automatic release at the halfway point of certain 1991 Act prisoners would be implemented on 27.5.08. This was subsequently changed to 9.6.08 and created some problems which had now been overcome. A Prison Service Instruction announcing the changes had been issued on 23.5.08 and there had been some media interest. The new recall provisions were due to come into force in July 2008 and training days had been arranged for members and staff in London and the regions. It was difficult to predict the number of recall cases that would be referred to the Board as much depended on the effectiveness of the new processes being introduced by the MoJ. It was agreed that the new PSI should be made available to members and that they should be advised about the likely impact on workload and encouraged to take on other casework such as duty member and ICM assessor.
It was confirmed that Ministers had approved the new Business Plan in April and it had been issued to members, staff and stakeholders. For the first time the Business Plan had been produced by Barbed, a social enterprise run by the Howard League inside HMP Coldingley.
The Chairman confirmed that it would be his last meeting as he was leaving the Board at the end of May. He added that the Office of the Commissioner for Public Appointments required a limited competition to fill the position and that is why Peter Handcock had written to all members inviting expressions of interest for an interim Chair pending a decision on the future of the Board. It was thought that the interim appointment would be for up to 12 months. The Chairman said that it would be the part-time job he was currently carrying out rather than the full-time post advertised last year. It was agreed that it would be helpful to send the job description to members.
It was reported that there had been several strong applications to serve on the Management Board and the Audit and Risk Management Committee. Robin Lipscombe had been appointed to both and Huw Vaughan Thomas appointed to the Audit and Risk Management Committee. All of the members who had expressed an interest in serving on the Operation Black Vote steering group had been invited to a planning meeting.
The views of the judicial members had now been collated and a response to Lord Leveson, the Senior Presiding Judge about how to increase the amount of judge time allocated to the Board was about to be sent. However, one area which remained to be resolved was the fee paid to retired judges. Having agreed a policy for non-retired judges of one day preparation for one day of sitting, it was important that retired judges should not be disadvantaged. It was agreed that this would be included as part of the review of fees currently taking place.
The proposed policy affected only one member of staff as no others travelled more than 10,000 miles in a year. After discussion it was agreed that the policy should not be adopted and that arrangements should be made to resolve the issue on an individual basis. The question of health and safety was referred to the Health and Safety Committee.
The recall provisions in the Criminal Justice Act 2008 removed the Boards ability to recommend a further review date although panels would be able to indicate areas of risk. It was therefore necessary to revisit the way in which recall panels were constituted in order to meet the new requirements. As a first step it was intended to consult the members at the recall training sessions. Any comments received would be considered and a recommendation put to the next Management Board meeting.
Counsels opinion was very clear and it was agreed that there should be a change of policy so that cases should no longer be sent for both an interview and an oral hearing and that where a panel is considering such action, the oral hearing should prevail. It was agreed that members should be notified through the Board Sheet and that the Members Handbook should be updated accordingly.
It was reported that Rachael Reynolds was conducting a review for the MoJ into the whole system target for indeterminate sentence prisoners and she had met with members, the Prison Service, Probation Service and the Public Protection Unit. Although her review was still continuing, she had already identified a number of areas where improvements were needed including dossier production and expediting Directions. It was identified that improved communication involving members and staff with the other stakeholders was vital for a whole system target to be successful and it would be necessary to demonstrate to any future PAC hearing that action had been taken to meet the recommendation in the NAO Report. A wash-up meeting had taken place with Jon Cable and Aileen Murphie from the NAO and they had again been complimentary about the Board and were very supportive in their comments. Their view was that the PAC hearing would take place in the Autumn.
It was explained that the scheme sat alongside the appraisal process but instead of feedback to the individual it was appraising the panel as a team. An initial pilot had strong support from those involved and it was now intended to roll it out across the Board. It would start with outcomes in DCR and paper recall cases and then include panel dynamics and oral hearings. The meeting agreed that it was a good initiative and approved the scheme.
The plan set out recent developments and new proposals for the operational teams. Of particular note was that the Oral Hearings team was to be organised so that cases were dealt with on a cradle to grave basis. This would introduce more flexibility in the way cases were handled. There was also a proposal to create a new post system which was aimed at improving the efficiency of the way correspondence is handled. The changes would mean appointing additional staff and may require taking over one of the panel rooms to accommodate them. With the decrease in DCR panels, there was usually only one panel a day. If there was a second DCR panel another room would be found. The proposals were agreed.
Concern was raised about the backlog of oral hearing cases. In many cases there was very little the Board could do because dossiers had not been received or were incomplete. In other cases there had been a failure to comply with Directions. However, there were some cases that could not proceed because there was no panel chair. An exercise was being conducted by staff to establish exactly how many cases were ready to be heard. Once this had been done it was proposed that hit squads of members should be tasked to hear as many cases as possible in an effort to reduce the backlog. There was concern that some ICM members had assessed many cases while others had done none. It was agreed that this should be reviewed so that there was a better distribution of work.
The meeting noted that most performance targets were being met and found it an encouraging start to the new financial year. The decision to monitor in-house the timeliness of DCR cases in the absence of statistics from RDS was welcomed.
The 2007/08 accounts were in the process of being audited by the NAO. In relation to the 2008/09 accounts the result for April 2008 was a deficit for that month of £166k. The important point to note was that the Boards costs were £20k below budget. The deficit arose as £157k less was drawn down than budgeted. The accounts included a reallocation of budget between certain areas. A new headcount report showed that there were 8 more staff than budgeted. The extra cost had been offset by an underspend on members fees.
The meeting noted that permission was refused in the case of Pilgrim. In relation to Morales there was a strong feeling that the Board should not remain neutral in view of the considerable problems being experienced when Directions were not carried out.
Interviews for psychiatrists and psychologists had taken place and it was encouraging that there was a strong field. Judicial interviews were currently taking place but it was disappointing that only 7 judges had applied this year. There was a need to make the job more attractive to the judiciary and it was hoped that the discussions with Lord Justice Leveson would result in much better terms of appointment for judges.
In view of the unpleasant nature of many of the cases coming before the Board there was a request to consider having counselling available to members and staff should they consider this necessary. It was agreed that the matter should be referred to the Health and Safety Committee to consider.
The report was due to be presented to Parliament before the Summer recess which was much earlier than usual at the request of the NAO. Some suggested amendments were made. The members were otherwise satisfied with the content of the report.
Chris Glenn reported on the visit that she and Sarah Lightfoot together with colleagues from the Ministry of Justice had made to Canada. They had found it extremely interesting and very useful. As well as the 2 day meeting of experts they also visited three prisons and observed a parole hearing and noted that decisions were issued on the same day. As a follow-up the organisers in Canada had requested further information and this was being supplied. A report of the analysis so far was due to be published when all the information had been collated.
Neil Butterfield concluded the meeting by expressing his thanks and appreciation on behalf of the Board to Duncan Nichol for his sterling work during his 4 years as Chairman of the Parole Board.
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